This spring, the State Library staff has been hosting a series of online training programs called “The Library as Community Center.” It has proved to be a big topic, one that can hold a lot of ideas. We have talked about conversations and welcome and special projects and social media and involving the library in community planning. For the final program of the series, we will turn our attention to involving the community in library collection development. Collection development is growing in all directions and could fuel a dozen workshops. The one on Thursday will be in two parts.
Marcia Allen, of the Manhattan Public Library, will present “Partnering with the Community: Building Collections in Your Library.” This program will explore ways in which librarians can work with the community to build collections. Marcy will look at sources for demographic information, at features which pull library customers to the website, and at marketing tools that librarians can utilize. She will also discuss ways to showcase library collections and to solicit customer input. We will also talk about library programming and ways to make the customers feel that the library is an inviting destination.
In the second hour Diana Weaver, of the Basehor Community Library, will discuss ways for libraries of all sizes to serve patrons in the digital environment. Her presentation is called “Aiming for a Moving Target: E-books in Libraries.” At Basehor, they have created a community focus group to help map a plan. The group auditioned several devices and scored them according to ease of use and the reading experience. The focus group also suggested ways the library could meet the needs of library users with this new technology. Diana will share what they learned in Basehor and what they have done, including classes, purchasing content and circulating devices. There will also be some thoughtful discussion on what e-books mean to libraries today and in the future.
“Collections and the Community” will be on Thursday, May 24, from 10:00 to 12:00. You may come into the Collaborate room after 9:30, if you want to do an audio check. The link to access this workshop is:
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.0B55F1B97C18B66D0BCA8276BE5440&sid=2011591
The workshop will be archived and the recording link sent after the long holiday weekend.